The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“OKLAHOMA WILDFIRES” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S1835-S1836 on March 15, 2017.
The Department is primarily focused on food nutrition, with assistance programs making up 80 percent of its budget. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department implements too many regulations and restrictions and impedes the economy.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
OKLAHOMA WILDFIRES
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, on January 15, 2017, an incredible ice storm came through my State. For some States that haven't seen ice storms, they are beautiful, but boy are they destructive. As freezing rain comes down, it lands on power lines, lands on trees, destroys the trees, power lines come down, and it is incredibly difficult for families and for regions when this happens. You can't move. You can't function. You can't travel the streets because they are covered with ice. It is very destructive.
The northwest part of our State experienced an ice storm like that on January 15. That ice storm devastated the Woodward area and all over the northwest--trees, debris, damage, power out for weeks in that area.
Then, in early March, it was starting to warm up. The forecasters from the National Weather Service and the Forest Service saw the forecast coming out of rapidly dropping humidity levels and very high winds, with a lot of debris damage still in the area. It was the perfect storm for wildfires.
They prepositioned assets in that area to be able to respond if they broke out, but on March 6--just a week and a half ago--wildfires broke out all across northwestern Oklahoma. Four large fires in particular broke out simultaneously in multiple areas. Some of them were started by some of those same power lines that were weakened by the ice storm. Now the high winds--60 miles an hour--are taking down those weak power lines, and they are striking the ground and starting a fire spontaneously out in a field.
There were four individual fires across this area covering 315,000 acres just in Oklahoma. One of those fires spread straight across the Kansas border and burned an additional 472,000 acres. To give you a point of reference of how large these fires were, the total fire damage that was done in acres is greater than the entire State of Rhode Island. Twenty homes were destroyed, 3,000 cattle were killed in the field, 6,500 hogs were killed, and 7 people died in the fire.
Let me give you a picture of what we faced in this area as I went out last Friday with Senator Inhofe to tour the area both from the air and on the ground and to talk to farmers and those individuals who are trying to work through this very difficult process. Those farmers and ranchers are facing something you can't even imagine in their fields. For miles, there is no grass. The cattle that did survive the fire had literally no food on their ranch for miles. Hundreds of miles of fence line were taken down. Each mile of fence in Oklahoma, just a simple barbed wire fence, costs about $10,000, and hundreds of miles of fence line were destroyed.
We have animals that burned alive as they tried to escape the fire. We had deer that, as they were running across the fields, got caught up in the barbed wire fence and 16-mile-per-hour winds, and the 16-mile-
an-hour flame caught up with the deer in the fence and burned them alive as they tried to escape.
We have families who have lost absolutely everything.
We have volunteer firefighters across much of this area who would literally be fighting the fire in one county in one area and hear on the radio about how a fire had broken out in another county on a road right near their own home, and literally volunteer firefighters fighting one fire could hear on the radio about the destruction of their home at a different fire.
In different places, the volunteer firefighters and those who were gathered, both career and volunteers, would see a raging fire at the home of their neighbor, of people they knew. In western Oklahoma, you know your neighbors in that area. You know the folks in the county. They would head out to a home as the fire was rushing at them and try to fight it off, try to cut a fire line to be able to stop it. Eventually, the fire would get so close, they would literally take their fire equipment and park the equipment between the fire and the home and spray down their equipment in hopes that the fire would jump over the house as the firefighters just huddled behind their own equipment hoping the fire didn't come to them. They saved several homes by using that extreme method.
Neighbors took their own farm equipment and their own tractors and created fire lines to be able to protect their neighbors' homes.
These small community firefighters fought fires for hours and hours. They saved a lot of lives, and they saved a lot of structures.
I can't even begin to tell you the pain of walking through that area, what has been described by many as walking across a moonscape of destruction where there is literally nothing left.
What have we seen in that? I will state that what we have seen is a tenacious spirit from people who survived an ice storm, were without power for weeks in many areas, and then had a wildfire come right behind it and destroy what was left. Over 20,000 bales of hay have already been donated from farmers all over Oklahoma who are trying to feed the cattle that are still left--20,000 bales. Understand the expense of 20,000 bales of hay being donated but also understand the efforts of all the truckdrivers who loaded up their vehicles and personally paid the gas money and the travel expenses to be able to deliver that hay over hundreds of miles to those folks. Oftentimes, the travel of that truckdriver and the gas required are more expensive than the hay that is in the back of it, and they are delivering as much as they possibly can.
I have to thank the folks from the Farm Bureau; the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association; Western Equipment; Oklahoma Farm Credit; the Red Cross of Oklahoma; the Salvation Army; the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture; the Oklahoma Forestry Service; Southern Baptist Disaster Relief; Oklahoma emergency management--first responders from all over the State, volunteer and career firefighters who worked very long and difficult hours. USDA and FEMA were also on site. I thank Harper County Extension; all the emergency management folks from Beaver, Harper, and Woodward Counties; all the folks who have donated, places like Love's Travel Stops that have donated so much to be able to move things there; the United Way; Cleanline Energy and their donations; and untold numbers of civic organizations and churches from around that community.
As I looked at many of those folks in the area last week and met with some leaders and pastors in the area, I reminded the folks that the devastation they face is not something that will be recovered from quickly. Springtime will come soon, and the area that is just black earth right now will spring to life with green grass again in the weeks ahead. But the loss of those fence lines, the loss of thousands of animals, the loss of homes, the loss of structures, will take a very long time for the folks--the farmers and ranchers who don't live on a high profit margin.
I have continued to encourage the pastors and churches in that area to walk alongside some families who will have a hard time recovering from this for a long time. I have encouraged our Oklahoma agencies and our Federal agencies to do what we can to be able to step in with repairing fence lines and helping them recover from a very traumatic event.
My wife and I stood with a rancher who talked about going out into the field after the fire. His home was completely destroyed. As he traveled out to the field around him checking on his cattle, he found dead cattle but also found cattle with their faces completely burned, blinded, with coyotes chasing them down. He said all he could do was stand there in the field and cry. These are going to be long days.
I am grateful that there are neighbors taking care of neighbors. I am proud of the people of Oklahoma watching out for each other. As we walk through this, God willing, we will continue to be able to hug and take care of our neighbors in the days ahead.
I want to tell this Senate and the people of the United States that this was a wildfire as big as the State of Rhode Island, and many people haven't even heard of it. But I can assure all of you that the folks in Oklahoma have experienced it, and we will walk through it together as a Nation.
With that, Mr. President, I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
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